The present field of locks primarily encompasses metal locks with springs and tumblers which involve intricate design and considerable complexity. This complexity results in manufacturing difficulties, greater expense, and time consumption in assembly and mounting. Metal locks are also prone to environmental degradation (i.e., rust and corrosion) in certain hostile conditions. The use of metal locks and keys in magnetically and electrically conductive environments is also disfavored in certain applications.
Recently, in certain applications such as, for example, tape storage files having drawers or panel doors, a demand has arisen for plastic locks to go along with the plastic structures of such files. However, available plastic locks have not provided the desired level of security, ease of assembly and mounting sought by users. An example of such a lock is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,910,982.
As a result of the shortcomings and problems related to the presently available plastic locks, there is a substantial need for a lock which provides a certain level of security at low cost and with ease of assembly and mounting in numerous environments.